Monpazier, France

This is a cafe scene from the Village of Monpazier, France located in the Southwest corner. A few years back, I painted this scene with a different composition but wanted to try a different layout. I am intrigued with capturing the weathered stone walls with watercolor granulation and texturing techniques.The medieval village of Monpazier to find such textures is an excellent source. This is the first new painting of 2025!

 

New Year and more art to explore!

 What is it about a new year and making a fresh start? Do we constantly have a need to re-invent ourselves? I believe the answer is yes. I know that I always start to think about what I want to accomplish this year and what would make me fulfilled and happy. What does one want to have in one's life. As you get older, your thoughts lean toward your longevity. We are all here on a temporary basis. But we get caught up in the everyday things that we need to do in order to live. Art has a way of making even the most mundane lives one of excitement and pleasure.

Last year and this year, I tried some new mediums that can work with watercolor as I have been wanting to expand my creativity. I dabbled with jelly gouache to create my Monet Garden series of paintings. I tried my hand at Collage in which I created my Moon Series. I now have been interested in lino printing. A novice at best but here is my first result shown below. It is entitled "White Mulberry".

Let us all continue to see the beauty around us and leave the troubles in the world to a God. We can help a little to aleviate some discomforts. Hopefully, I hope that you have enjoyed my blog and has brought some inspiration. Take care and have a happy new year.

Watercolor and Collage

Forest Moon

Spirit Angel Moon

 Collage work as intrigued me for some time now. The way that you can put elements of designs and subject matter to form pleasing sometimes abstract or surreal images together. Combining watercolor, is something that I have been toying with. For me, I have to have it revolved around a single theme idea and creatively put together elements in an intuitive way. Here are some results that I am pleased with. The Moons with the backgrounds are my watercolors. The rest are images and papers that I have collected over the years that I am now putting to use.

Empress Moon

My Watercolor Workshop in Duravel, France

The watercolor workshop in the Southwest corner of France was a resounding success! This was my first time teaching internationally. I could not be more please. All students enjoyed the workshop. Here are a few photos of the art studio and the surrounding medieval villages that we had the pleasure in visiting and learning about the history.

Bridge in Cahors

Medieval Village St Cirq La Popie

My Students and I out for dinner at Michelin Star Restaurant, Stelsia

The grounds at Domaine du Haut Baran. The workshop generated this painting of Haut Baran.

 

Incognito

This is a bit different than my usual watercolors. Doing some experimenting and testing out a new watercolor paper that I had not used before. I had a photo of several unpainted venetian masks displayed in a window which included not only human looking face masks but also animals. I was drawn to the different expressions and experimented with color and form. Sometimes you have to get out of a comfort zone and try something different.

 

Domaine du Haut Baran

I will be conducting my first International Watercolor Workshop this year! I have been teaching in my local area for some time now and this opportunity came up for me this Fall. I was there many years ago attending a workshop by Judy Morris and love the place! Coming full circle, I am now teaching and will now be conducting a workshop. My workshop is filled for this year already but we'll see what the future holds.

 

First Performance!

 I am proud of this painting that was a commission for a special friend. It is of his granddaughter in a play. I was so attracted to the theatrical theme and enjoyed creating the lighting effects in watercolor. It was a challenge but I am pleased with the result. I took photos of it in stages as I developed the painting. They are posted below. The painting was done on 300lb Kilimanjaro watercolor paper.

Trying Something New!

Breaking away from transparent watercolor, I tried working with Jelly Gouache. I enjoyed it but took a bit of practice to get use to it and its quality and properties. Based on scenes of photos that I took while visiting Monet's Garden, I sketched out these designs and painted using the gouache. 

These turned out to be fun, small works of art that can be framed or used for notecards. If you have tried painting with this fairly new medium, please comment below. Also, I would like feedback on the designs that I created.

 

Chanterelles

Two things were accomplished with this paintings titled "Chanterelles".  I took a photo of this scene when in France the last time. I have always been fond of it but I knew the chanterelle mushrooms would be a challenge to paint. Second of all, I wanted to try out new watercolor paper made by Windsor & Newton. It is their professional watercolor block 12 x 16 hot press paper.

As you can see, I think my painting turned out well. It was a pleasure to work on the paper and will now be using it on a regular basis. Any feedback that you might have if you are familiar with this watercolor paper, please comment.

 

8 x 8" Watercolors

 Because of an upcoming exhibition coming soon, I have created several 8" x 8" watercolor paintings. I am not sure which one I should submit, but I will be creating a page on my website just for these small paintings. I would like to offer small prints of these and hope to source them soon. Here they are:

If one catches your eye, please let me know.

4TH Annual Women in Watercolor International Juried Competition

 I am pleased to have received the following message:

Dear Artist,

We are pleased to inform you that your paintings "Reaching Out" and "Monpazier" have been accepted into the 4th Annual Women in Watercolor International Juried Competition. Congratulations!

Your paintings were two of 216 accepted entries this year out of over 1800 entries from over 60 countries, from the best of the best women watercolor artists; so you should be very proud!

And I am very proud! Here are the paintings:

New 8" x 8" April Dawn

I am working up a few watercolors in an 8"x8" format. I will reveal at a later time why. I intend to do a series which I will post on my blog. Here, I have recorded in a few steps how it looked leading to the final at the bottom. It depicts a dalia blossom which caught my eye and thought it would make for an interesting watercolor subject. To enhance the composition, I put in a lacy pattern in a strip in the background. (I discovered that "Washi Tape" used in the first image makes for a crisp edge and paint does not seep underneath.)